Stretch-regulated exocytosis/endocytosis in bladder umbrella cells.

The epithelium of the urinary bladder must maintain a highly impermeable barrier despite large variations in urine volume during bladder filling and voiding. To study how the epithelium accommodates these volume changes, we mounted bladder tissue in modified Ussing chambers and subjected the tissue to mechanical stretch. Stretching the tissue for 5 h resulted in a 50% increase in lumenal surface area (from approximately 2900 to 4300 microm(2)), exocytosis of a population of discoidal vesicles located in the apical cytoplasm of the superficial umbrella cells, and release of secretory proteins. Surprisingly, stretch also induced endocytosis of apical membrane and 100% of biotin-labeled membrane was internalized within 5 min after stretch. The endocytosed membrane was delivered to lysosomes and degraded by a leupeptin-sensitive pathway. Last, we show that the exocytic events were mediated, in part, by a cyclic adenosine monophosphate, protein kinase A-dependent process. Our results indicate that stretch modulates mucosal surface area by coordinating both exocytosis and endocytosis at the apical membrane of umbrella cells and provide insight into the mechanism of how mechanical forces regulate membrane traffic in non-excitable cells.

Fragmentation of the Golgi apparatus: an early apoptotic event independent of the cytoskeleton.

The Golgi apparatus undergoes irreversible fragmentation during apoptosis, in part as a result of caspase-mediated cleavage of several Golgi-associated proteins. However, Golgi structure and orientation is also regulated by the cytoskeleton and cytoskeletal changes have been implicated in inducing apoptosis. Consequently, we have analyzed the role of actin filaments and microtubules in apoptotic Golgi fragmentation. We demonstrate that in Fas receptor-activated cells, fragmentation of the Golgi apparatus was an early event that coincided with release of cytochrome c from mitochondria. Significantly, Golgi fragmentation preceded major changes in the organization of both the actin cytoskeleton and microtubules. In staurosporine-treated cells, actin filament organization was rapidly disrupted; however, the Golgi apparatus maintained its juxtanuclear localization and underwent complete fragmentation only at later times. Attempts to stabilize actin filaments with jasplakinolide prior to treatment with staurosporine did not prevent Golgi fragmentation. Finally, in response to Fas receptor activation or staurosporine treatment the levels of beta-actin or alpha-tubulin remained unaltered, whereas several Golgi proteins, p115 and golgin-160, underwent caspase-mediated cleavage. Our data demonstrate that breakdown of the Golgi apparatus is an early event during apoptosis that occurs independently of major changes to the actin and tubulin cytoskeleton.